On September 5, U.S. District Court Judge John Copenhaver upheld West Virginia ballot access laws for president. Barr v Ireland, 2:08-0990.
The decision is 34 pages long. It puts heavy stress on the problems that a later deadline than August 1 would cause elections officials. Of course, if the state didn’t require so many signatures (over 15,000), the burden on the elections officials would be less.
Also the decision points out that the August 1 presidential deadline, combined with the 2% petition requirement, was met by the Libertarian Party in 2004, and by Ralph Nader in 2004. Also the decision points out that, this year, the Constitution Party and Ralph Nader qualified. Finally, the decision notes that if the Barr petition had started just two weeks earlier, it very likely would have succeeded.
While I still believe a 2% petition requirement remains unreasonable, it makes a good point about Barr’s failure.
I hope both libertarians in WV vote for Baldwin!
Actually it was the National Party, not Barr’s failure. They decided not to try. But after receiving the nomination, Bob’s campaign decided to give it a go and almost made it and their effort should be commended.
Plus, I still believe requiring any signatures is unconstitutional for federal elections. The Constitution states the requirements to run for federal office and that the States are to only name time, place and manner of the elections. Requiring signatures is a requirement and is therefore unconstitutional. Manner denotes the procedure of collecting and counting votes, ie. Ayes and Nays, paper ballot, electronic ballot…
sad news indeed, is an appeal possible Richard?
He still has time to register himself as a write-in candidate in West Virginia, but he won’t get anywhere near as many votes that way.
One more screwed up case that fails to note that —
Separate ballot access laws are NOT equal ballot access laws.
What century will there be ANY lawyers / judges with some brain cells ???
I.E. does the horrific Civil War I in 1861-1865 have to be re-fought to get EQUAL political rights ???
It is sad to loss this case. I think many West Virginians would have voted for Barr. I think with the limited amount of money the National Party had for ballot access in the beginning it was a tough call to not try to achieve ballot access. Next time we need to start early and donate more money.
Although the decision could be appealed, the appeal would not be until after the ballots had been printed.
I am well aware of the details surrounding the Bob Barr petition drive in West Virginia, and I know that the petition drive was grossly mismanaged and that is the primary reason that it was a failure.
This is what you get when you get a political director and ilk who not only are incompetent and malfeasant, but DELIBERATELY SABOTAGE ballot access. Yes, DELIBERATELY (on purpose).
What other outcome could be expected?
Keep in mind that Bob Barr jumped into the race relatively late. What ever level of collusion between the Barr camp and the national they stoped short of putting together a unified ballot access stratagy that would have put Barr on all 51 ballots. To me this just re-enforces that politics are not only messy and confussing but not all the players are competent. I keep wondering, has anybody put together a theoretical plan that includes budget and manpower (where and when you can use outside pettitioners) plans to include starting dates to minimize over all cost? If the far flung ideaolgies of libertariansm, constitutionalism and the greens put their heads to gether could we figure out a set of plans where we could the collective set of candidates onto as many ballots as possible while minimizing the overall cost. Could we have a unified program manager for the states where we can cooperate?
I wouldn’t blame EITHER Bob Barr, OR the National LP. It is clearly the STATE WVLP that dropped the ball. West Virginia ALLOWS stand-in candidates, and allows candidates and parties to begin petitioning FOUR YEARS BEFORE the deadline. They could have started the day after the November 2004 election!!
The Libertarians in WV did absolutely NOTHING to help with ballot access for their candidate. Name one WV Libertarian who even tried to collect signatures.
Doremus Jessup, the WVLP had pretty much folded after the 2004 election. I think they restarted the WVLP early this year.I think in April? Hopefully, this will inspire Libertarians in WV and they will rejoin the Party, grow the Party and become a leader in State LPs.
Ditto with the LP of Maine
The Barr campaign and LP National are most definitely to blame for the failure in West Virginia. They could have made it on the ballot in West Virginia had they not completely mismanaged the drive.
I’m surprised 15,000 weren’t obtained. That’s not that many signatures even in a short time. I’ve gathered 2,000 authentic signatures in less than 4 days on my own, albeit this was before we had to read the 3 minute waiver to each individual. Depending on if a citizen can sign regardless of other affiliation or if they voted in the primary, such a count isn’t unattainable, IMO. But, I don’t know Virginia law. I’m in Texas, which, all holes barred has to be the toughest State to get petitioned. Our count is generally around 37,000 with a definite doubling needed as the governors are generally making statements such as, “Over my dead body”.
What the writer, Steve, said intrigues me. Could qualifying for a ballot line be a Constitutional question? It would certainly seem so. Free speech rights aren’t free if not obtainable because of obstruction. Here’s where I believe the alternative parties might lock arms on intent. Do all the drives we can, then join each other in a legal test of the question. Seems to me Mr. Nader would be one heck of a leader for this task. By now, I believe he’s run on just about ever third party line at some time. 🙂
Andy and Gary are both experienced petitioners, assuming that I’m guessing their last names correctly.
And, yes, ballot drive management is the key to the multiple failures this year.
Looking at the Ballot Access Chart above, it still looks like we may have more failures, like CT. I sure hope I’m wrong about that, but they filed too few sigs, especially if they got a lot of Hartford sigs.
The most impiortant thing every four years is to qualify on all 51 ballots. Without that nothing else matters…Barr none.
P.S. And yes, a lawsuit should be filed if indead requiring signatures is unconstitutional. I would make that the most important thing to do after the electons.